What looked to be a nuclear off-season for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers is officially over, and judging by the number of familiar faces returning for 2004, the casualties were minimized.

For every Tom Europe, Harold Nash and Brian Clark blown out, there's a Milt Stegall, Robert Gordon and Lamar McGriggs coming back for yet another run at this team's first CFL championship in 14 years.

That's right, it's been that long between sips, Bomber fans, a Grey Cup drought surpassed only by Saskatchewan, going into its 15th season of famine. Maybe that's why the Bomber marketing department created the Banjo Bowl -- it guarantees one of these two teams a title this year.

Of course, looking good in September isn't the issue here.

As we said last year at this time, this Bomber team will be judged by what happens after Halloween. That's just life when you've won 14, 12 and 11 games during the regular season -- more than any team in the CFL the last three years -- but splatted like a pumpkin on pavement in the playoffs.

For those who need reminding: there was a shocking loss to Calgary in the '01 Grey Cup, that humbling West Final defeat in Edmonton a year later and last November's embarrassment against the Roughriders in the West Semifinal.

If this team were a band, they'd be The Backsliders.

But it turns out it wasn't "win or break up" in '03, as so many had predicted.

The lead players -- people like quarterback Khari Jones and receivers Stegall and Gordon -- remain centre stage.

It's the supporting cast that has a few new faces, albeit promising ones such as receiver Kamau Peterson and running back/kick returner Keith Stokes, who've hit plenty of high notes since the opening of training camp.

But on the defensive side, where championships are won and lost, you're looking at five new starters, which is kind of like changing your rhythm section just before hitting the road.

"They're going to have to gel fast," head coach Dave Ritchie was saying the other day. "Because the season's coming."

This Thursday we'll begin to see the results, as the Bombers open their 2004 Tour with the Ottawa Renegades as the opening act.

The theme for this year, then?

Win or break up, of course.

What else could it be, with Ritchie, now the CFL's longest-serving field boss with the same team, entering the final year of his contract?

Like he did in 2001, Ritchie goes into the season on one leg. But this is a lame duck with a crow's mentality: it's his tree, and he's sitting in it until you absolutely force him to fly away.

And some of those older birds around him are forming a protective circle, just like they did three years ago when the Bombers won 12 straight games and finished 14-4 on the season, earning the boss a new deal.

"I'm a big Dave Ritchie fan. That motivates me," McGriggs said. "I might be on my last (year), too, so why not go out together, with a bang?"

"We're really trying to get back to that 2001 attitude: a nasty bunch of guys, feisty -- just willing to work really hard," McGriggs said. "I don't even know if it was to get coach an extension or not, but it was just something everybody wanted to do.

"We might rip off 11 or 12 again, you never know."

That's general manager Brendan Taman's hope.

A Ritchie loyalist who came here with his then-boss back in '99, Taman is part of a fascinating triumvirate in the Bomber front office.

An off-season promotion to the GM's chair has vaulted the player personnel specialist to No. 2 in the football food chain, behind only club president/CEO Lyle Bauer.

As much as Taman would like to give Ritchie an extension, Bauer, perhaps recalling the wonder of '01, prefers a wait-and-see approach.

So the Bombers are, literally, playing for their coach's job, which, when it gets right down to it, you could say for most teams, most of the time.

With the axe in the up position, Taman spent the winter wheeling and dealing like Monty Hall, re-signing stalwarts like Doug Brown and Dave Mudge, while acquiring Stokes, fullback Randy Bowles, centre Cory Annett and backup quarterback Kevin Glenn in trades.

Taman also approached the CFL free agent market like a cheetah tracking an impala, sinking his teeth into Peterson, possibly the prize catch of the CFL off-season.

Suddenly an offence that was going stale looks and sounds fresh again.

"It's exciting," Peterson said. "You see that same glimmer in everybody's eye."

Toss in the acquisition of two well-regarded assistant coaches, Ronnie Lancaster and Jim Daley, no small feat on its own, and you have a team that appears to have re-invented, rather than dismantled, itself.

"It's going to be a good time out there," Jones said, sounding every bit the front man of a show that can still rock and roll.